Deferred Success

Deferred Success

A euphemism for failure with the (perhaps slim) possibility of success later. For example, if a marketing campaign failed to achieve better sales numbers, but the company wishes to portray the hope that the sales numbers will improve later, it may call the campaign a deferred success.

The newspapers had a field day with the story - there was a cartoon of two people sitting in the dark, with the caption: 'Oh damn, there has been a deferred success in the power' and sensible people dismissed the idea as just another batty notion put forward by people who refuse to face up to the real problems facing education Laying aside all this mirth for a while, however, it seems to me that what it shows, worryingly, is the mentality of those in education.

Her motion, which will be seconded by a colleague from Yorkshire, reads: 'Conference believes it is time to delete the word fail from the educational vocabulary to be replaced with the concept of deferred success.

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